Kermit TF wrote:So this Rene was like what Enzo Ferrari or Ferry Porsche where to motoring in their day ?

I guess so, except that Herse's bicycle designs were never bettered. Not that weight is the only concern when measuring performance, but to give you a hard numbers example - In 1938, he built a racing bicycle fully equipped with wide tires, fenders, lights and a rack, at a weight of just 7.94 kg, lighter than any similar bike today. He created bicycles built for full length fenders and larger volume 'balloon' style tires, which are necessary for long distance randonneur cycling, and indeed comfort in whatever cycling you choose to do, 'specialist' areas excluded.Jan Heine, who publishes and edits an independent cycling magazine called Bicycle Quarterly and has written a book on Herse, is the seller of the bicycle. Through his magazine he has done much independent testing and proved that a thin casing balloon tyre like those used by Herse (and the Grand Bois hetre available today, which measures at 42mm), are no slower than a 23mm 'racing tyre', and are indeed faster than most available on the market. Another of Herse's signiture designs is the three arm crank, which could fit a much wider range of chainring sizes than modern cranks, and provided a much lower 'q factor' (or distance between the crank arms), which for many people translates to better 'spinning' while cycling. Dura Ace has recently gone from 5 to 4 arms to save weight, as they saw that 5 arms was overkill even when pure power transfer is the only concern (we may see the day that they go to 3) and they are still not as light as Herse' cranks. An 11 speed drivetrain wears out much faster due to having a thinner, weaker chain and thinner teeth, and is horrendously expensive to run due to the manufacturers then having to craft a casette out of a single piece of aluminium to make up for the weakness of their design.Basically, Jan has amassed a small group of people who question the long held customs of the mainstream cycling industry, and question whether wind tunnels and scales are the best measures of the worth of high quality bicycle components. Component manufacturers would have you believe that 23mm tires, zero clearance above wheels and super stiff oversized bicycle frames are the 'best' of what is available to cyclists, but fast bicycles don't have to be expensive to maintain and not durable, uncomfortable, and in my eyes, butt ugly. These bicycles just don't suit 99% of the cycling population.

TL;DR Rene Herse and Jan Heine = good Shimano, Campagnolo, Sram, many frame manufacturers = improvement could be made if they stopped humping themselves.

I haven't read the book on Heine (on the chrissie list), and actually don't know a great deal about the man himself, but that's my own opinion on the significance of Rene Herse in the 21st century. Beyond Herse himself being an amazing man, and his bicycles being visually captivating and incredibly well designed, Herse is proof that the design of modern bicycle is marketing hype over real world conditions and results.

And hence his bicycle is a *Popcorn* sale!

*edit* sorry to steamroll your answer with an essay grantw, not intended

Last edited by LugNut on Wed May 01, 2013 11:18 pm, edited 4 times in total.

From what I can gather its an expensive, name brand frame built from boiler pipe.

It looks nice, with great paint but still made from the same stuff as a K-Mart Repco Traveller.

Thanks, I expected it to be a lower end model. The other frames I have been looking at for my trainer build are a Soma Smoothie and Surly Pacer (or similar) which are both fairly basic steel frames. Saw that Pina an thought it could be a cool alternative. Any idea how it would compare to these types of frames.

the Soma is made of Tange Prestige heat-treated butted CrMo steel; butted CrMo rear end and the Surly is "100% Surly 4130 CroMoly steel. Main triangle double-butted. TIG-welded"

I wouldnt be too worried about the weight of the Pina (trainer after all) but want a nice ride feel. What do you guys think?

If you can put up with owning that particular Pinarello then I'd be buying a Repco Super Light or Tri or the equivalent in Ricardo/Apollo/Malvern Star etc and give it a paint job with the money you'd save not buying the first bike.

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